Stoddard's 'The Bobwhite Quail' The Bobwhite Quail, Its Habits, Preservation and Increase Herbert L. Stoddard
1931; Oxford University Press; Volume: 48; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/4076521
ISSN1938-4254
Autores Tópico(s)Science and Climate Studies
ResumoStoddard's 'The Bobwhite Quail.'--Some years ago the Committee on CoSperative Quail Investigation began a comprehensive study of the Bobwhite in portions of the Southern States with a view to its possible increase in a natural state and on game farms, so as to insure a supply of the birds for those who enjoy Quail shooting.The work was undertaken in coSperation with the U.S. Biological Survey and Herbert L. Stoddard was placed in charge of the investigation which covered the period from March 17, 1924 to June 30, 1929.Two reports of progress were published in 1924 and 1926, respectively, which were duly noticed in these columns, and now we have the final report, • probably as exhaustive a monograph as has ever been prepared on a single species of North American bird.The stout volume of nearly 600 pages is divided into twenty chapters which seem to cover every phase of Quail history.The types of southeastern Quail territory are first described and it is explained that Mr. Stoddard's intensive studies were mainly limited to the region between Thomasville, Georgia, and Tallahassee, Florida.Under Life History are considered, mating, fighting, nesting, rearing, breeding, feeding, roosting, etc., while separate chapters are devoted to Calls, Plumage, and Development.The well known "Bobwhite" call is in Mr. Stoddard's opinion, and as the result of long and careful study, not the call of the mated bird but "largely the call of the unmated cocks, ardent fellows eager to mate but doomed to a summer of loneliness, from lack of physical prowess or an insufficient number of hens to go around."In the discussion of plumage there is an account of the curious erythristic phase that has developed in the covies of the Ames Plantation at Grand Junction, Tennessee, a bird totally unlike the familiar Bobwhite.The chapter on food of the Bobwhite is contributed by C. O. Handley and Clarence Cottam and is a most valuable analysis.Various small fruited leguminous plants seem to be the favorite sources of the bird's vegetable food, though seeds of pine, oak and sweet gum are also sought, as well as seeds and sprouting seedlings of various weeds.Movements of the Bobwhites were studied by extensive banding and trapping and it was found that coveys usually consisted of two or three families with some stray or unmated birds and that they numbered from twelve to fourteen individuals on the average, although some contained as many as twenty or even twenty-eight.As the winter advances the neighboring coveys tend to mix but on the whole the Quail of the southeastern States is sedentary and does not move far from the region in which it was
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